Mourinho at Inter

[Fulham Broadway 16,437]

A Ferrari, Cadillac, but I'm sorry Mourinho in a Mini just makes me think of Mr Bean

Fight or flight for Jose Mourinho ahead of Inter Milan San Siro showdown with Chelsea

Between Lombardy's lakeside jewels of Como and Cernobbio stands a sumptuous villa, furnished with antique treasures, marble floors, tennis courts, even a private helipad.

By Oliver Brown in Como, Italy

Published: 7:00AM GMT 22 Feb 2010

Familiar face: Jose Mourinho, the Inter Milan manager, will face his former club on Wednesday Photo: REUTERS The head of the household, Jose Maria dos Santos Felix Mourinho, bought it almost two years ago from the family of a silk magnate to satisfy the twin imperatives that govern every aspect of his private life: extreme luxury and supreme isolation.

Those priorities have not changed since Chelsea gave Mourinho and his family a Belgravia flat overlooking Eaton Square, with Roger Moore and Roman Abramovich for neighbours. A 24-hour security detail in London ensured he remained relatively unmolested and yet, as soon as he was sure of the job at Inter Milan, the manager took matters of privacy into his own hands by investing in his remote retreat.

• As ever, it was a place to which Mourinho escaped at high speed from the San Siro on Saturday night in his Ferrari Scaglietti. The Scaglietti, a grand tourer that sells for north of £200,000, takes pride of place in his garage — alongside a Cadillac and, in keeping with his faintly oddball persona, a Mini.
  He had just volunteered some early thoughts on Chelsea, pitted against his Inter side on Wednesday in the Champions League, and was impatient to leave. "Inter can only be beaten with six men," he snarled in defiance, after his team held on for a 0-0 draw with Sampdoria despite having two players sent off. He said: "My players know all about the quality that Chelsea have. I have to tell my players about where we can hurt them on the pitch."
  Mourinho, even by his mercurial standards, was in the type of belligerent form to explain why such fascination follows him. Having berated the referee for the dismissals, he glowered on the touchline and crossed his wrists in front of his neck in a provocative handcuffs gesture. Man in chains, it seemed to say. He was certainly shackled from speaking to the Italian press to explain his actions, since he knew himself that he could not resist one of his now-familiar tirades against the officials. When he made one such outburst following last month's Milan derby he was fined £15,000.
  Mourinho also makes no secret of his antipathy for the majority of Italian journalists, who are given to forensic criticisms of his tactics and unwise comparisons with the record of his predecessor, Roberto Mancini. When Mario Sconcerti, a doyen among the country's sports broadcasters, dared to mention the former Inter manager's name in a live studio link, Mourinho took out his earpiece and shouted: "I know why you're saying this. I've been told you're a friend of Mancini."
  The interviewer replied: "I am a friend of everyone, even you." But the Portuguese hit back: "You're no friend of mine."
  A lack of allies among the local reporters assuredly informed his performance post-Sampdoria. Where he had dismissed their entreaties for comment with a curl of the lip, he greeted one prominent English journalist with a warm embrace, as if the memories of his entertaining battles against the press had never left him. "For us, it is extremely frustrating," one columnist for a leading Italian daily said. "Sometimes he gives us one-word answers or else just ignores us."
  At Inter, Mourinho is not a man enchanted with all he surveys. He feels he should be esteemed higher for his accomplishment in leading the nerazzurri to a fourth straight scudetto last season, given the overhaul he had carried out on an ageing squad. On a team poster that hangs in the office of his assistant, Beppe Baresi, he has scrawled crosses through the faces of 14 departed players, including Adriano and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The scant personal credit he perceives for his success in managing this transformation feeds conjecture that he is becoming restless.
  Indeed, during half an hour of discussion at Inter's training complex in Appiano Gentile, Mourinho was quite at liberty to hold forth on another of the club's potential Champions League adversaries, Real Madrid. It had been reported in Spain that Real were keen to lure the Portuguese this summer to replace Manuel Pellegrini — and that the interest was "well received" by Mourinho, as if he were already combing the Castilian countryside for his next palatial residence.
  "There are papers that are dishonest and they invent news," Mourinho said. "I am not a part of this game. There are two things that certain people find hard to accept: one is that I only speak in press conferences, and two I don't go on TV shows. I haven't prohibited myself to speak, I just don't like it."
  It was an airy dismissal of an issue about to become highly salient. Should Inter lose to Chelsea over the two legs of their last-16 match, Mourinho will, ironically, never have been more marketable. Defeat would not hurt his personal prestige as much as his very reason for being at the club. His defence of his record in Serie A is a diversion, burying the fact that Inter have only reached the second round of the Champions League under him. Massimo Moratti, Inter's owner, wants improvement, or his manager may have to go.
  Consider that proposition from Mourinho's perspective. He can, and will, make protestations of loyalty to Inter this week, but Chelsea's travelling fans will attest that the moment he no longer has universal support is the moment he sunders the bond. Among his epiphanies during a nine-month break from the game after leaving Stamford Bridge was the idea he could work wherever he wanted.
  Major clubs, countries even, were clamouring for his signature, convincing Mourinho of his international appeal.
  His ingrained wanderlust and extraordinary linguistic dexterity meant assimilation into different cultures would never be an obstacle. Neither would opposition by his wife, Tami, of whom the 45 year-old said in a Chelsea press briefing: "She is perfect. Everywhere I go, in everything I do, she is there for me."
  Life in Italy is not the problem. Mourinho savours his periods of rest from football, whether he is dining with Tami in Bellagio, shopping with one of his Portuguese henchmen on Milan's Via della Spiga, or negotiating more lucrative deals with Armani, providers of his fetching black scarf and coat.
  No, it is the work, and the possibility of its undermining by a defeat to Chelsea, of all clubs, that could soon stir his restless spirit.

[northernblue 2]

Mourinho's quotes in this Champions League blog ahead of the Chelsea game:

Mourinho said: “It’s a big game. It’s a big game for Inter, it’s a big game for Chelsea. It’s a big game also for Europe because I don’t see in these last 16-round matches another one with two teams of these dimensions. So I think this is the real big game of this last 16.”

It is the first time Mourinho has faced his former employers since he walked out in 2007 but the 47-year-old has promised to keep a lid on his emotions.

He said: “Not nervous, not excited, I promise you. I have to look at this game with the emotion of any Champions League game, without any extra adrenaline, motivation or extra pressure.”

Hmmm I don't believe you Jose, he must be excited about playing Chelsea again!?!